Costing patio cover enquiries: What lead price fits your installation business?

An enquiry is worth what your own jobs can support

If you want to fill available installation dates with new patio cover work, you need an economic answer to a specific question: what price per enquiry fits your jobs and your sales workload? A higher selling price does not automatically make a lead more valuable. What matters is the amount left after materials, delivery and the entire acquisition process. That perspective lets you buy new demand while keeping the margin on your installation work visible.

Patio cover jobs can differ considerably in scope. A relatively simple roof can generate less revenue while making good use of one scarce installation day. A more extensive project with additions can provide a larger absolute contribution and require more advice, quotation work and installation time. A useful decision therefore needs at least two views: the contribution from the whole job and the contribution relative to your tightest capacity constraint.

Start with completed jobs whose costs you can reconstruct. Choose examples resembling the work you want to undertake next. One exceptionally easy installation is not enough to represent all future enquiries. An unusually difficult project should also remain identifiable as an exception. This gives you an internal basis to update with new results, rather than an unverified industry average that may have little connection to your team or the projects you intend to sell.

On the webRichtung patio cover page, review enquiry information and delivery options and register your business. You can then connect the offered starting point with your own calculation before placing an order for additional enquiries in Germany.

Compare two job sizes with a clear cost boundary

Every amount, duration and outcome below is explicitly hypothetical. These are not webRichtung prices, recommended selling prices, market benchmarks or promised conversion rates. The example uses net amounts for business comparability. Job A is a smaller patio cover with assumed net revenue of €8,000. Directly allocated costs for materials, installation and other delivery work total €6,000. This leaves €2,000 of contribution before acquisition. The installation requires one day of the designated crew in this example.

Job B is a larger project with additional features. Assumed net revenue of €14,000 and directly allocated delivery costs of €10,200 leave €3,800 before acquisition. It requires two days of the same crew. The features simply describe the example’s scope. They do not establish how long a particular roof construction takes in practice. Your actual installation plan comes from the property, the specification and the work your team needs to perform.

A therefore leaves €2,000 per crew day before acquisition, while B leaves €1,900: €3,800 divided by two. B has the higher total contribution; A contributes slightly more per scarce installation day. The preferred job depends on whether you currently lack demand or installation capacity. This distinction helps sales avoid pursuing only the largest quotation when smaller suitable jobs could fit the available week more effectively and contribute well to the business.

Record the cost boundary clearly. Installation costs are already included in direct delivery costs here. Do not deduct them again as sales time later. Initial contact, the survey needed to prepare the offer, calculation and follow-up enter at the next stage. The amount left after acquisition is still not company profit: general overheads and any other unallocated costs also have to be supported by that balance.

Include survey and quotation work across all handled enquiries

For a hypothetical group of 20 enquiries, assume a purchase price of €80 each. That gives €1,600 in purchase costs. The figure serves only the calculation and is not a current offer. Each enquiry also takes an average of 15 minutes for contact attempts, initial clarification and short notes. Twenty times 15 minutes gives 300 minutes, or five hours. Unsuccessful contact attempts use time too and therefore belong in the calculation rather than disappearing from the sales workload.

In the example, six conversations lead to site surveys. Allow two hours per appointment, including travel and preparation, for a total of 12 hours. Six quotations, including their associated follow-up work, take one further hour each, adding six hours. Total sales work is five plus 12 plus six: 23 hours. At an assumed internal cost of €40 an hour, that is €920. Total acquisition costs are therefore €1,600 plus €920, or €2,520.

The internal hourly rate values the use of resources. An existing employee does not necessarily create a new cash payment for every extra hour, but that hour becomes unavailable for other work. Separate the cash required to purchase enquiries from the economic value of staff time. Looking only at the supplier invoice understates the work. Counting the same existing payroll cost and time value twice overstates it. A consistent boundary matters more than a number that merely looks precise.

The patio cover offer page describes structure, area range, construction preferences, an addition, planning stage and contact information as starting points for discussion. Exact site measurements are not supplied. In your own conversation, establish what can be clarified before a visit and what must be checked at the property. Preparation makes the appointment more focused; it neither replaces professional assessment nor supports a claim of a fixed amount of time saved.

Read contact and conversion rates with the correct denominator

Suppose the team reaches 12 of the 20 people for an actual conversation. The contact rate is 12 divided by 20, or 60%. Six of those conversations lead to a survey and quotation: six out of 12 reached contacts, or 50%. Two of the six quotations become orders. The conversion rate measured against quotations is one third, or approximately 33.3%. Measured against all purchased enquiries, however, it is two out of 20, or 10%.

These numbers describe only the fictional group. They are neither targets nor a statement about the performance of an enquiry source. Separating them nevertheless shows where a management decision may belong. If few people are reached, examine response organisation and the contact history. If conversations happen but few suitable offers are possible, examine area, service scope and expectations. If suitable offers do not turn into jobs, look for evidence from the actual purchasing decisions.

A low rate is not itself an explanation. Record specific reasons such as a project no longer being current, an unsuitable proposed specification, an unavailable timeframe or a decision still pending. Do not combine undecided quotations with final refusals. Compare groups only after an adequate observation period. A recently received enquiry has had less time for advice and a decision than a completed month’s group. Ignoring that timing can make the same data support opposite budget decisions.

Compare the remaining contribution for different jobs

If the example group produces one A job and one B job, the business generates €2,000 plus €3,800, or €5,800 before acquisition. Subtracting the total €2,520 acquisition cost leaves €3,280. The work requires three crew days. Acquisition cost per won job is €1,260, because €2,520 is divided by two. This measure is useful, but on its own it does not show which mix of jobs has to support the cost.

If the same group instead produces two A jobs, acquisition work remains unchanged under the initial example assumptions. Contribution is then €4,000 before acquisition and €1,480 afterwards. Two B jobs produce €7,600 before acquisition and €5,080 afterwards, requiring four crew days. There are three different economic results despite an identical number of purchased enquiries and won jobs. A single average amount per conversion would hide the differences that matter for pricing and capacity.

Keeping sales time unchanged is a deliberate comparison assumption. If larger projects need additional design rounds or longer surveys, add that work. Another quotation cycle can already change the economics. Identify the actual scope after the conversation and check the result after installation. The area range selected in an enquiry is not evidence of eventual revenue, required installation time or the contribution the completed job will leave.

Derive a price ceiling from your intended remaining contribution

For the mix of one A and one B job, the next calculation aims to retain €2,000 after acquisition. The €5,800 contribution before acquisition must cover that target and €920 of internal sales costs. No more than €2,880 can therefore be spent purchasing the 20 enquiries: €5,800 minus €920 minus €2,000. Dividing by 20 gives a calculated ceiling of €144 per enquiry. The hypothetical €80 price used earlier is below that limit.

With two A jobs, the same target gives a different decision. Subtract €920 of sales costs and the €2,000 target from €4,000. That leaves €1,080 for 20 enquiries, or €54 per enquiry. At the assumed purchase price of €80, the desired balance is not achieved. The result remains positive, but it is only the €1,480 calculated earlier. Covering the costs included in the model and meeting your chosen contribution target are distinct outcomes.

Test a weaker result as well. If the entire group produces only one A job, €2,000 of contribution faces €2,520 of acquisition cost. The shortfall is €520 before general overheads are considered. One B job leaves €1,280. This helps you choose a starting budget your business can absorb. It does not justify expecting the assumed job mix, or expecting any particular order to result from the enquiries.

Match the monthly budget to the installation window

Assume the crew has eight unallocated days in the period under review. Two are retained as a reserve for existing work and short-notice additional effort, leaving six days for new orders. One A-and-B mix needs three days. Two such mixes would occupy six days and consist of four jobs. This does not establish a required or guaranteed number of leads. It first establishes the executable workload for this hypothetical mix of jobs.

Check sales as a separate constraint. Two groups following the assumed pattern would require twice 23 hours, or 46 hours of handling. If the team does not have that time, available installation capacity alone is insufficient. Conversely, a well-staffed sales team may create more suitable offers than the installation crew can deliver in the requested period. Discuss realistic dates before the quotation creates an expectation about delivery that your business cannot support.

Derive the monthly enquiry limit from manageable work and financially acceptable exposure. It does not automatically spread enquiries evenly across your weeks. Also allow for surveys, purchase decisions and installation to fall in different months. The month when you buy an enquiry is not necessarily the month when the finished job brings in payment. Keep budget, open sales work and installation commitments visible together instead of treating them as one and the same period.

Start purchasing enquiries with a calculation you can explain

For the first group, a simple working basis is enough: your own job contributions, time spent at each actual handling stage, clearly defined sales statuses and available crew days. Write down the assumptions before starting and replace them with observations afterwards. If the calculation does not hold, look for the cause where it occurs. More enquiries cannot automatically compensate for insufficient advice capacity, unclear offer fit or an installation margin that is too small.

webRichtung offers patio cover enquiries for areas within Germany, with standard or exclusive delivery and a monthly limit you choose. Standard enquiries go to no more than three providers; an exclusive enquiry goes to one. The limit does not promise a specific delivery volume. Exclusivity concerns the delivery of the enquiry and does not require the prospect to buy. You see the current price before ordering and can compare it with your own calculated limit.

The question “What does a lead cost?” now becomes a concrete decision for your installation business: which jobs can you handle, what contribution should they leave and what enquiry spending fits that plan? On the patio cover page, review delivery choices and register your business. With your calculation ready, you can use the existing ordering process and assess how new enquiries could fit into the installation capacity you have available.